By Junfil Olarte, SE Asia Travel Writer
A soft breezy sunrise rouses me as my ship nears the coast and moors at the docks of Maguino-o, off the city of Calbayog Western Samar in the Central Philippine Islands.
Maguino-o seaport really looks like an isolated place. You can hardly notice houses dwelling nearby it. The scene still brings you back to the early years (undeveloped in other words), with meagerly built homes yet pacific, having fresh air and unblemished environment. Perhaps, unlike many travel writers in the country, such a place catches my attention most. Especially, that it does not see even a glimpse of foreign visitors. I know that a lot of exciting activities await me in this part of the island.
Franciscan Father Marlowe Rosales then receives us warmly when we get in at the Friary's refectory, situated right beside the secondary school premises of Christ the King College (a popular OFM run school in Calbayog City). With us in the dining room is Father Marcelo Tubac, the school's OIC President, whom I also ask for some information about the area, along with Father Rosales who has arranged my media visit in the city.
I say that this metropolis in Samar is not touristy: narrow streets as we've meandered through it, having only one or two (yet tiny) department stores with small number of celebrated refreshment centres. Seeing foreign travellers roaming around here is sporadic. However, it does have something very important. The splendour of the city's natural attractions, its colourful culture and arts, historical features and the ancient relics in its museum are simply remarkable, which interest me to even travel 22 hours by sea from my port of origin in Northwestern Mindanao Southern Philippines, with stopover in Cebu, sailing through the island straits of Leyte.
We do have natural spots here, Father Marlowe tells me, but still fairly developed. These are beaches and waterfalls; a hot spring that provides therapeutic waters; and a number of caves in its forests (part of Samar Island's vast labyrinth of caves) that hardly ever visited by domestic and foreign tourists. I can assist you going to these attractions if you choose to stay long, Father Marlowe convinces me. I just nod whilst still being seated at the dining room. But tomorrow, he continues, we're going to drive eleven kilometres off this city for the orchestra concert.
I consume the following time visiting the tourism office. Drenched in the 11:00am sunlight, Joel and I do photo shots on its still quaintly Spanish-looking facade. Just in front of it is Calbayog's very old cathedral the Franciscan Jose Gomez de Huerce had built during the late 1840s. In my appointment with Tourism Officer Erlinda Calesa she gives me a historical book about the city. And it appears that the year 1739 traces the records of Calbayog's earliest establishment.
I head back to the Friary for lunch and, a few hours after, set myself to visit its museum, situated just close to the High School grounds of Christ the King College. Oh, I should keep you in touch with Carl, says Father Marcelo, he can give you details about the museum. Calbayog's Samar Archeological and Cultural Museum is the only one in the Eastern Visayas Region open to the public that keeps some ancient burial jars, human craniums and bones, artifacts recovered in several towns of Samar five decades ago.
There are vintage brass musical instruments also kept inside the museum, said to be legacy of the late Jose Cinco Gomez, a great composer of Calbayog in the 1960s, otherwise known as the Music Man of Samar. Troves of different ancient relics, including old manuscripts in the 17th century, are put on display inside lined framed glasses positioned at the museum's centre walkway.
The following day finds us driving through a narrow road off the city to witness the said orchestra concert in Migara, situated at the upper vicinity of Calbayog, about eleven kilometres away from the city proper.
Jose Cinco Gomez, in fact, was the famous composer in Samar, who had had his "Colegio de San Vicente de Paul Orchestra" organised in 1930 (renamed the "Cecilian Orchestra" two years later).
Jose Gomez's organised orchestra five decades ago had enjoyed performing its original pieces to Calbayog and its neighbouring towns and even played classical symphony from immense European Legends as Mozart, Bach, and Beethoven. However, Samar's piece of music died right after the day Jose Gomez passed away in 1975. And no one, since then, has ever taken his place to revive such rare legacy he left.
Father Marlowe then embarked on a great task of reviving Calbayog's symphony, which has been dormant for three decades, and bringing music to young students of Christ the King College. Obtained his "Bachelor of Music in Conducting" and "Bachelor of Music in Music Education" in the University of Santo Tomas Manila in 1998-2001, he began teaching students at CKC such orchestral instruments, including piano, and the reading of its musical notes which is the most difficult and crucial of all. "I say it's tough, really," explains the 38-year-old priest. "I even thought trumpet was just a mere instrument where you simply blow on it in order to create harmonic tunes," Father Marlowe smiles. "In the case of strings," he adds, "I'd had assistance from already learnt students to do a help on others for fast learning."
The long months of difficult endeavours had turned into one great honour when Father Marlowe Rosales set up the "CKC Jose Gomez Orchestra" in 2007, signifying the renaissance of the island's long lost legacy for more than three decades. The symphony group then did its first performance at the Monastery of Saint Clare on March 9, 2008, followed by concerts at different venues in several towns of the province, and even spent successful performances at Philippine Capital sites as Manila's Century Park Hotel, Mall of Asia, and Forbes Park.
CKC Jose Gomez Orchestra members are composed of high school learners as young as 13 to 16. Many tried, but not all were selected, to become participants of the Orchestra's first chorale set. Persistent interest and discipline on the part of aspirants came to be the basis of the final selection.
The long months of difficult endeavours had turned into one great honour when Father Marlowe Rosales set up the "CKC Jose Gomez Orchestra" in 2007, signifying the renaissance of the island's long lost legacy for more than three decades. The symphony group then did its first performance at the Monastery of Saint Clare on March 9, 2008, followed by concerts at different venues in several towns of the province, and even spent successful performances at Philippine Capital sites as Manila's Century Park Hotel, Mall of Asia, and Forbes Park.
CKC Jose Gomez Orchestra members are composed of high school learners as young as 13 to 16. Many tried, but not all were selected, to become participants of the Orchestra's first chorale set. Persistent interest and discipline on the part of aspirants came to be the basis of the final selection.
Although some uninitiated people do criticise it, CKC Orchestra is the only orchestra existing in Samar provinces (or perhaps, in the entire Philippine Islands in terms of young school artists) that has successfully established itself and even obtained noteworthy publicity from famous Philippine media as ABS-CBN's "Umagang Kay Ganda" and GMA's "Mel & Joey" in 2009 and 2010, respectively. Because of this rare and great achievement (same as the Franciscan Father Cantius Kobak), the City Government Council passed an Official Resolution on October 11, 2010 declaring Father Marlowe Rosales (a native from Ozamiz City, Southern Philippines) as an "Adopted Son of Calbayog".
zones, people who are leaders, people that sees mission, people that has a vision, people who are driven, people who are united, and people who seeks justice.
always emanates in his character that even in writing the course of the story, he left us the paper and pen and stood up from the history table, stood at the background and while overseeing his people, he wanted us to write the course of our history, he wanted us to be involved, he wanted us to know the fight, he wanted us to be courageous, he wanted us to make steps, he wanted us to decide, he wanted an overrated orchestrated history we shall all be proud of even if it would cause him his light called life.
can thin scar, no painkiller could ease the pain, no clotting factor could stop the bleeding, and no tranquilizer could counter anxiety. We could not ask for more for we are truly blessed with him and in Christ. We are at peace and happy until you distorted it, until the sun set and never rise again and until the rain poured and never stop again. But he won’t allow these things and it will break his soul seeing us this way that is the very reason why today we are the sun that rise, we are the wind that blow away the clouds, we are the drug that heals our own and we are the vaccine that immunizes us all from your ferocious intentions and from the cancer of society.
